Here Comes CGEORC!

The Bush administration and their allies in the Conservative Media have spent a week trying to tarnish Richard Clarke, but up until now haven't really put forward their version of events. So now we have Mr. Rich Lowry stepping forward to clear up the facts of the case.

Clarke assertion #1. The Bush administration paid little attention to warnings of al-Queada and took a long time to commit to a strategy

Rich Lowry's Response. "But policy-making takes time. The Clinton administration's Presidential Decision Directive 39 identified terrorism as a national security concern, and was "signed in June 1995 after at least a year of interagency consultation and coordination." At least a year."

My Response. So you accept the facts as stated, but complain that the placing of blame for a failure to act is wrongheaded. Interesting that you hold up the Clinton administration as a standard for the Bush administration to live up to.

Clarke Assertion #2. The Clinton Administration was more open to suggestions on how to fight Terrorism.

Rich Lowry's Response. "He [Clarke] circulated among Clinton officials an anti-al-Qaida plan in September 1998. "This strategy was not formally adopted, and Cabinet-level participants ... have little or no recollection of it, at least as a formal policy document."

My Response. Who cares? Clinton is out of the White House now, and if you want to go to war over his record on fighting Terrorism all over again, well, I guess you have more time than I do.

Clarke Assertion #6. The Bush administration did not take terrorism chatter seriously in the summer and fall of 2001.

Rich Lowry's Response. "Not quite. In the summer of 2001, "the CIA again went into what the DCI [George Tenet] described as 'Millennium threat mode,' engaging with foreign liaison and disrupting operations around the world. At least one planned terrorist attack in Europe may have been successfully disrupted during the summer of 2001."

My Response. Now to put on my hypocrite boots. After having just declared Clinton verbotem I'm going to bring him up. Clinton claimed to have foiled all sorts of schemes around January 1, 2000, and yet you and yours still claim he didn't do anything serious to fight terrorism.

What's also interesting about this particular article is that the way it sets as it's key theme a deliberate misinterpretation of Clarke's words. "In explaining the discrepancy between previous comments he made about President Bush's anti-terrorism policy and the harsh ones that he is making now, Richard Clarke has said the difference is a matter of "tenor and tone." Indeed."

So then Lowry goes on to talk about how Clarke's current tenor and tone are dishonest. But of course what Clarke must have meant was that his tenor and tone in the earlier interviews (when he was still on President Bush's payroll) was different from his tenor and tone now. Because being outside of the structures of power he is more free to say what he thinks, isn't he? He's less guarded. So the idea that his tenor and tone are today picked very carefully doesn't make a lot of sense.